Don’t miss the extraordinary meteor shower in the night sky in August 11-12

August has already offered incredible nights sprinkled with numerous shooting stars. Another magic meteor shower is predicted for August 24, however on the night of August 11 and early morning hours of August 12, there will be an intense concentration of shooting stars in the sky with about 200 or 300 meteors per hour.

On August 8-9, experts promised an extraordinary night with not only shooting stars but also the possibility to see five planets of our solar system to the naked eye (Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn).

And yet, it sounds like these nights were not the most intense since there will be another peak on August 11-12 with about 200 or 300 meteors per hour, the phenomenon will be particularly intense between 2 and 6 in the morning. Such a ‘celestial fireworks’ won’t happen again before 2028. This spectacular show is commonly called Saint Laurent’s tears and were named after the saint who is celebrated on August 10.

If you are interested by this event, we would really advise you to move away from cities and their luminous pollution and remember that your eyes need about 15 minutes to adapt to the darkness of the night, so be patient if you really want to be able to see as much shooting stars as possible.

What is a Perseid?

Each year, the Earth gets closer to Swift-Tuttle -a comet- in the middle of August. Its wakes are sprinkled with dust particles and this is very close to the constellation Perseus which gave it its name. These space debris are what create this meteor shower from the Perseids. The quality of this show can vary depending on the distance from the Earth from the thicker part of the particle swarm. The presence of the Moon does also play a part.